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Che Summeruville News
The Official Legal Organ of Chattooga County
WINSTON E. ESPY DAVID T. ESPY, JR. WILLIAM T. ESPY
PUBLISHER GENERAL MANAGER ADVERTISING MANAGER
TOMMY TOLES
EDITOR
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Address All Mail to: THE SUMMERVILLE NEWS, P. 0. Box 310, Summerville, Ga. 30747
Editorials
The Heart Oof Foothall
The Trion Bulldogs and the Chattooga
Indians will open their 1986 football
season Friday night with home games.
Trion will take on LaFayette while
Chattooga will face Lakeview-Fort
Ogletorpe. With high hopes for the season,
the home stands in both stadiums will like
ly be filled to capacity.
The moments before the first pigskin
is kicked off at high school gridirons
across the country are some of the most
exciting of the season. The cheerleaders
Communicating
Chattooga County is a collection of
communities, personalities and interests
and they don't always agree on goals and
projects or, if they do, they disagree on
methods for attaining the desired results.
Nothing unusual about that. The same
set of circumstances exist in virtually
every county in Georgia, and perhaps the
nation. How a county deals with those
divergent interests largely determines
whether it will progress.
In too many instances in Chattooga, it
seems like personalities and politics play
too large a role in the decision-making
process.
Communication also seems to be suffer
ing. Instead of people sitting down face-
A Fitting Honor
Lyerly's Mayor and City Council did a
fine thing last week in dedicating the
town's new city hall to former Mayor
Grover Jackson.
Jackson, a business and civic leader
who has done much for the city and his
community over the years, isn’t in the best
of health but he was able to be present for
the ceremonies.
Not only has Jackson been a con
tributor of all sorts of charitable and com
munity projects and activities, he found
time to run a successful business and serve
%
39 YEARS AGO
The following are excerpts from the Sept. 4, 1947 edition of THE SUMMER
VILLE NEWS.
* * *
RIEGELDALE DAIRY RECORD SHOWS PROGRESS — Sloping green
pastures with neat white fences, beautiful grazing Guernsey cows and a big
dairy barn on a hill. These are some of the word pictures that help describe
the famous Riegeldale Dairy, pride of the Riegel Textile corporation which is
located at Trion. At the present time, 129 cows are hand-milked three times
daily.
i* * *
NEW FORD BUILDING UNDER CONSTRUCTION — The new Hair
Motor Company building being constructed at the intersection of Commerce
Street and U. S. Highway 27 is expected to be ready for occupancy within 60
days, according to W. F. Aldred, company official. The building, which will be
modern in every respect, Mr. Aldred said, will have a glass front and is of brick
construction.
* * *
CONSTRUCTION PROGRESSING ON COTTON WAREHOUSES —
Two cotton warehouses are being constructed by the Summerville Manufac
turing Company, local cotton mill, on their property in South Summerville. The
building, both of brick and wooden construction, will house approximately 500
bales of cotton each, according to A. G. Dunson, superintendent.
* * *
AD: SUMMERVILLE CASH STORE — Add Up These Savings — White
or red grapes, 15¢ pound; 46 ounce orange juice, 25c; all brands cigarettes, $1.69
carton; two-pound jar (Little Bill) peanut butter, 39c.
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
Within County . ............ . .$6.83
Out~of-Count{‘ Rates
Available On Request.
Published Evefi Thursday By
ESPY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
Second Class Postage Paid
At Summerville, Ga. 30747
PUBLICATION NO. SECD 525560
are enthusiastic and pretty, fans are full
of anticipation, players are busy psyching
themselves up to face their opponents and
coaches are nervously pacing the sidelines.
Professional and college football may
draw thousands of fans to huge stadiums
but if you want to see and feel the heart
of the sport, show up at Trion or Summer
ville Friday night.
Tear 'em up Bulldogs and scalp 'em In
dians. We're behind you.
to-face and discussing issues in a
reasonable and courteous manner, some
folks seem to prefer writing hot and
sometimes unfactual letters to one
another, further creating animosity, or
making unproven charges and claims.
Such actions tend to provide a tem
porary, satisfying feeling at the seat of the
emotions, but they accomplish little for
the county.
Courteous, face-to-face communication
might accomplish quite a bit for the entire
county and make it one of the most pro
gressive in Northwest Georgia. The cur
rent approach certainly isn't working to
anyone’s longterm benefit.
as mayor of the small town.
He got the city out of debt and expand
ed and improved its water service, as well
as making sure that all its streets were
paved. He laid the foundation on which the
present mayor and council are building a
progressive town. '
It was entirely fitting that the new ci
ty hall, which houses the town's fire
trucks, council chambers and clerk's office,
be dedicated to Grover Jackson by the ci
ty he loves, and to which he has given so
much.
ORITIES JOIN HANDS in the WAR AGAINST DRUGS
US. and MEXICAN AUTH J
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Viewpoint s
By Tommy Toles, Editor <
Professor Is Wrong
Most people think military spending is
an economic boon to Georgia but it's not,
according to Jay M. Stein, a former
Georgia Tech associate professor who is
now on the staff of State University, Buf
falo, N. Y.
In a copyrighted piece sent out by a
group calling itself ‘“Georgia Forum,”
Stein says defense expenditures don't pro
duce anything that can be consumed, that
defense spending negatively affects the
growth rate of the national economy and
that funds allocated to military bases
don’t really help communities in the
neighborhood of the bases. He also con
tends that only a small amount of labor is
usually involved in military production.
Naturally, Stein wants to reduce
military spending, saying it would reduce
the budget deficit and taxes could be
lowered. The nation's roads, bridges,
dams, airports and so forth could be
financed with federal funds if defense spen
ding were to be reduced, Stein says, and
funds he says were cut from many social
programs could be restored.
The professor’s reasoning is faulty. For
one thing, he ignores the reality of the ex
ternal — primarily Soviet threat — to our
republic. The domestic goals he espouses
may be worthy ones but unless our nation
remains free, none of them can exist. And
without a strong national defense, it won't
remain free.
In peacetime, it's quite easy to criticize
the military and defense contractors. But
let a conflict develop where our survival
is threatened, and those previous defense
On The Funny Side _,
By Gary Solomon 4
I was looking ahead on my appoint
ment calendar recently when I noticed
that we observe Grandparents’ Day Sept.
G
Honoring grandparents is a good idea.
Oh, 1 know there’'s a day or award
ceremony for nearly everything these
days, and sometimes it gets to be a bit
much.
Last week the television treated us to
*‘Bob Hope Pays Tribute to General Jim
my Doolittle”” and *‘An All-Star Salute to
the Great Entertainers of the 40’s” or
some such thing. Pretty soon we’'ll pro
bably see ‘‘General Jimmy Doolittle
Thanks Bob Hope for Paying Tribute to
Him" and ‘‘Great Entertainers of the 40’s
Who Are Still Ambulatory Return the
Salute.”
But despite our tendency to run near
ly everything into the ground, grand
parents are worthy of honor. I regret that
mine passed away before I was old enough
to truly appreciate and express my love to
them.
I had sweet ones who let my brother
and I drive the tractor, ride the horse, col
lect eggs, and eat all the homemade cake
and pie we wanted every summer when we
visited them on the farm. I imagine they
spent the remaining 51 weeks of the year
recuperating, but they never complained.
They weren’t the only ones who need
ed rest after we left, though. Their ancient
white horse stood peacefully in the pasture
day after day, doing nothing more
strenuous than munching hay until we ar
rived. When he saw who was piling out of
expenditures become invaluable and the
programs Mr. Stein would place first
become inconsequential by comparison.
Defense spending still consumes less
than 30 percent of the total federal budget,
contrary to the impression left by the pro
fessor. The ““vote-buying’’ segment and in
terest on the national debt consume the
remainder.
With the technological nature of the ex
ternal threat faced by our nation, we can
hardly go back to defending our borders
with pellet guns and slingshots. Waste
does exist in military spending and every
effort should be made to reduce it, but in
comparison to waste and inefficiency in
the non-defense part of the federal budget,
it's very small. The national news media
rarely publicizes that waste on a continual
basis, however.
If attacked by an enemy now, we won't
have weeks, months or years to rebuild our
forces, as we had after Pearl Harbor in
1941. The next war — God forbid that
there be one — would be fought with
weaponry and personnel on hand at the
time.
While a local economy may be
“boosted’ by military spending — just ask
residents of Marietta and Columbus, for
example —that's not the purpose of
defense expenditures.
Professor Stein's main premise is
wrong. We spend tax money on defense to
retain our liberty, including our free enter
prise economy, and not to affect the
economy one way or the other.
the out-of-state car, I'm sure his joints
began to ache and his blood pressure shot
up just thinking about the beating he was
about to take. Grandpa always tried to
talk us out of riding him, but we insisted.
Somehow, riding a horse just made us ci
ty boys feel, well, like cowboys!
Another great pastime on the farm was
shooting the rifle. Rabbits are a big pest
in farm country, so grandpa would send us
to stalk them every summer. Why I did
that, I don't know, because I had the
softest heart for animals a boy could have.
(Forget Roy Rogers when he and Trigger
took a fall. Is the horse all right? That's
what I wanted to know).
By sheer luck, my brother or I never
failed to hit at least one of the varmints,
which left me racked with guilt for months
to come. One time I mortally wounded a
jackrabbit and stood sobbing over him for
an hour before I could force myself to put
him out of his misery. Somehow I was hop
ing the little fellow would jump up and say,
“Just kidding! I'm okay,” but no such
luck.
Roaming the fields of southern
Oklahoma in search of adventure was fun
but exhausting. After a few hours we
would return to the house, chug three or
four sodas, and sit out front in the shade
with grandma and grandpa while she snap
ped beans and he carved wood with his
knife.
Those weren't ‘the good old days,” but
they were good days and special times. So
in case Bob Hope never gets around to it,
let me say: grandma and grandpa, thanks
for the memories.
Guest Column
By Albert Hattis
Promises Cost
Some legislators were talking about their ac
complishments as they started their 1986 reelection cam
paigns. They talked about existing and proposed pro
grams. They discussed their constituent concerns. These
were city, county, state and federal legislators, the peo
ple we had elected to determine government policy, enact
laws, approve programs and their costs, and determine our
tax loads.
Not too many voters had shown up at this meeting,
which may explain why our legislators can get away with
so much. One citizen asked a question about why taxes
were so high. That question never got a direct answer.
In spite of all the so-called tax cuts and reforms, total
tax revenues keep going up reducing the money you have
available to spend or save. The federal government spends
about a trillion dollars each year, with states, cities, coun
ties and other taxing bodies spending about a half trillion
dollars annually. Since our gross national product, what
all of us earn before taxes, is about $4-trillion dollars, 38
cents of every dollar is going for government. Since most
of our elected officials don't want to face the fact that their
promises mean higher taxes, governments at all levels are
going into debt, more debt each year, which translates in
to more money being used to pay off the interest on that
debt.
I heard a couple of polite citizens suggest that the on
ly way to cut taxes was to cut government expenditures
and reduce government debt. One voter said that he had
paid 63.9 cents for a gallon of unleaded gas, and discovered
that 25 cents of that price was hidden federal, city and
state taxes, so that the real price without taxes was 38.9
cents. Government was taking 40 percent of what he had
paid.
At another meeting, some citizens discussed whether
the community really needed another school. There had
been a small increase in the school population, but it ap
peared to be a temporary blip. They questioned whether
a 30-40 year building with expensive construction, fur
nishing and operating costs, financed by bonds that would
be repaid at high interest, was the best possible answer.
One of the people commented, “Don't worry, most of us
won't be living here during that 30 to 40 years while the
bonds are being paid off. It will end up being someone else’
problem!”
I thought about something that had happened in my
former hometown. Our school superintendent hired big
name consultants and recommended construction of an ad
ditional high school, and expansion of a middle school and
four kindergarten to fourth grade elementary schools.
Most citizens didn't ask any queétions, and the bond
issues to pay the bill passed. Anyone who doubted that
we had a need was summarily smeared for not supporting
“our kids.” A few years later, with all of the projects com
pleted and the taxes raiced to pay off the cost, we found
that the big student enrollment surge never materialized,
the temporary blip di appeared, and the new high school
was closed and rogmg were closed at all of the other’
ECh(l)‘OlSi ITheTS;;ChOOI stiperintendent resigned to become a
ank teller. The taxpayers will be pavi i
until about 2000. e iy o
Government costs a lot of money. Taxes are high and
tax reforms don't cut tax bills unless spending is cut. We
must insist that legislators at all levels of government cut
taxes and live within tax revenues. Our states owe
$l7O-billion, or about $720 per person. Our federal govern
ment owes about $2.1-trillion, or about $8,400 per person.
The interest debt service is about SIBO-billion per year.
During an election year we have an opportunity to force
our legislators to face the issue of government living
within its means. Tax *‘fairness’ is a phony issue, if all
that happens is rearranging who pays what and not reduc
ing tax burdens and spending.
You must take the time to elect legislators who unders
tand that you want government spending cut, and let them
know that.; you intend “firing"” those legislators who don't
2::: I‘S?)::?tg recofrds Supporting government spending
- Don't vote for legislators just because they speak
well, smile a lot, have sex appeal, and send you lots of cor
respondence produced on an expensive electronic word pro
cessor, for which you paid, along with postage and handl
ing costs.
(Albert Hattis is associate professor at Southwest
State University, Marshall, Minn.).